


Pull up a chair

by ThatScreamingBread



Category: Choices - Stories you play, It Lives in the Woods (Visual Novel)
Genre: Aftermath, Brief Flashback, Death, Friendship, Spoilers for the end of the story, painful memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 07:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13700205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatScreamingBread/pseuds/ThatScreamingBread
Summary: One year after the events of It Lives In The Woods and only a week after the memorial service, Connor bumps into Tom at the local pizza parlor, and the two reflect on the deaths of their friends and wonder what could have been.Kinda depressing story.  Set in the universe where all of the characters but Noah die.  It's basically just a one-shot of Connor and Tom chilling out in the pizza parlor and just being good friends to each other because I needed to see this out there.





	Pull up a chair

Connor Green closed the door to his black vintage Camaro, mindlessly sticking his hands in the pockets of his signature leather jacket as he marched into Pizza Mega. His mom was out on a campaign tour and his dad was visiting a few friends down in Nevada, so he and Stacy had the place to themselves.

He instinctively frowned, remembering the harsh reality: Stacy had died exactly one year and one week ago. He was truly all alone.

_I’ll just pick up a couple slices of pepperoni and sausage, then I’ll go. No need sticking around this place if there’s nothing else for me here._

Connor loved Pizza Mega. When he first got his driver’s license, he and Stacy used to eat there biweekly on Friday nights after her cheer routine finished, and a couple times, she brought one of her friends, usually someone from the cheer squad. Once, she even treated _him_ to a couple slices. 

But now, Connor felt only remorse and guilt when he entered the pizza parlor. He remembered that Stacy was the one to pick the seats while he ordered for them, and the seats she chose were always by the windows so she could look at the night sky. 

Connor swallowed hard and walked up to the cashier, who shot him a sickly sweet smile and asked for his order. “Three slices of pepperoni and sausage to go, please,” Connor mumbled. 

“That’ll be 7.84,” Connor dug in his pants pocket and pulled out his wallet, handing the cashier a crisp ten dollar bill. He accepted his change and sat down at one of the nearby tables to wait for his pizza.

“Hey, you!” Connor perked up for a moment before realizing the exclamation probably wasn’t for him. “Guy with the leather jacket, I’m pretty sure I recognize you from somewh—Connor! Connor Green, that’s it. Over here!” Connor’s head whirled around to look for the person calling his name, but with only one other person in the entire pizza parlor, it wasn’t too much of a challenge.

At one of the elevated tables sat a young man with long, raven hair and squarish-rimmed glasses, a friendly smile on his face as he waved to Connor. Connor glanced back at the counter just as the cashier set Connor’s pizza box down, prompting him to walk over and pick it up before going over to see what the familiar stranger wanted.

“Hey, do I know you from somewhere?” Connor asked. 

_”Hey, do I know you from somewhere?” Connor asked the familiar stranger he encountered on the side of the road while driving to work one day, obviously walking somewhere with a backpack at the ready._

_“I think so,” came the reply. “I was just wondering the same thing…do you go to Westchester High?”_

Connor nearly choked on his own words, a distant memory of the previous year suddenly flooding back to him. To make a recovery, he offered a weak smile.

“I was friends with a couple of your buddies,” the young man’s smile disappeared from his face, but it reappeared a split second later. “Name’s Tom, just in case you forgot.” 

“I didn’t realize we have mutual friends,” Connor dumbly stated, sitting down across from Tom. 

Tom’s smile faltered once more. “Y-Yeah. Y’know, uh…Andy,” he choked out. 

_Oh._

“A-And…MC, and Lily…Lucas, Dan, Ava,” Tom licked his lips, a regretful glint in his eyes. “Noah,” Tom swallowed hard, hesitantly parting his lips to speak once more. “Stacy.”

Connor cringed as soon as his sister’s name left Tom’s mouth. Tom’s eyes widened and he sighed, giving Connor an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” 

“No.” Tom stopped mid-sentence. “No, it’s fine. It’s just…” Now it was Connor’s turn to sigh. “I was a little over three when my sister was born. I hated her guts. She was always drooling all over my toys and stealing my parents away from me. But as we grew up, I actually started to like her more. She was my _little sister_ , and I treasured that. Hell, I _still_ treasure that. But now…now she’s gone,” Connor closed his eyes for a few seconds.

Tom remained silent, waiting for Connor to speak again. “Now all of them are gone. And that…that _bastard_ ,” he spat, seeing red as memories of Noah came to his mind. “He got away scot-free.” Connor impatiently pounded his clenched fist on the table.

“Last I heard, he’d made it all the way to Utah. Authorities are still on his skinny little ass,” Tom replied, biting into a slice of his cheese pizza. “He won’t get away with it. The authorities know he murdered at least one of them,” Tom grumbled. 

Connor’s eyes widened. “He directly killed—what? Who?” 

“MC,” Tom replied bitterly. “There was a massive stab wound right in MC’s stomach, and even though Ava’s knife was nearby and covered in MC’s blood, Noah’s fingerprints were all over it.”

“God…” Connor trailed off, resting his head in his hands. “People like them…Stacy, MC, all their other buddies…they’re not supposed to die. I was supposed to protect them, and what did I do? I spent the rest of the evening at the hospital, lying on a soft bed next to the heater while they were… _maimed._ ” 

“No,” Tom interrupted. “It was my fault. After the incident with the spiders at the basketball game, I woke up in the forest. Andy’s leg was…God! He was really messed up. They all told me to get out of the forest and call 911. I did, but I should have stayed! I could have helped them,” he guiltily looked down. “My lifelong best friend is dead, and his blood is on my hands. _Their_ blood is on my hands, all of them.”

“Listen, bud,” Connor prompted, causing Tom to look up. “I know we don’t really know each other that well, but let’s make a pact.”

“Pact?”

“A pact to keep in touch, and a pact to stop blaming ourselves for what happened. I…it feels like I could have done more to save them. And maybe I could have, but I was literally handcuffed to a chair in the hospital."

“I guess that sounds like a reasonable pact to make,” Tom nodded affirmatively. “Shake on it?”

The two young men reached across the table and firmly shook hands, and in that moment, the two knew that even though things would never be the same, they at least had another guy who understood exactly what the other was feeling.


End file.
